Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

The Alchemist is a pleasant and easy to read story, but I felt the author tried to be too clever, without totally suceeding. Yet the book contains some fine reading. The story‘s narrative flows well, with high points and low points, and with likeable characters. It is the quest story of a small shepherd boy who follows his dream to find a treasure. After having had a dream, he gives up his current existence and goes in search of this dream. The main character is a sheperd boy that after having the dream embarks himself in a crusade to reach the piramids of Egypt after going accross the desert. A gypsy woman and a mysterious king advise him to pursue his destiny. The old man says to Santiago: "To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. All things are one. And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Of course there are many difficulties in his way that prevent him from fulfilling his dream – but what happens at the end, I will not disclose here. Through a boy's life the book shows how great life can be and that nothing is easy, but if you believe in yourself and your dreams you can find your treasure in life. We all have a reason for our existences and this book helps you to think about your life, about your purpose in this life, and how to find happiness in all the things you do. The protagonist must choose whether to stay in his current status or to keep walking and taking risks. Though he finally achieves his dream, sometimes he loses everything he had in that moment. The structure of the story can be compared with the style of life of determined people who chase a dream until they get it. For this reason, the story itself tries to project a practical message. Generally this is an uplifting and inspirational piece of writing. I trully believe it is a book that we should read at least once in our life-time to question ourselves about our own purpose in life. Coelho's writing is smooth and liquid; it runs off the page at a fair pace, and you should be able to gobble it up in a couple of hours. 50 million copies of this book have been sold world-wide and if you haven’t read it yet, you better make sure you do so soon─or you’ll feel out of the loop! The writing techniques I employ in this article are all explained in Mary Duffy's writing manual: www.writerivetingprose.com Augustine, City of God Austen J, Pride and Prejudice Austen J, "Marriage Proposals and Me" Austen J, Emma Borges, The Aleph C. Bronte, Jane Eyre Burroughs E,Tarzan Cervantes, Don Quijote Chaucer, Wife of Bath Coelho P,The Alchemist Coyle H, They Are Soldiers Dante, New Life Dickens C, David Copperfield Dostoevsky, Crime&Punishment ConanDoyle,Hound of Baskervilles Dubner S, Superfreakonomics DuMaurier D, Rebecca Ellis B. E. American Psycho Fitzgerald S, Great Gatsby Flaubert G, Madame Bovary Fleming I,Doctor No Freud S, Leonardo Da Vinci Friedan B, Feminine Mystique GarciaMarquez, Of Love & OtherDemons GarciaMarquez,OneHundredYrs Guerrero M,ThePoison Pill Grass G, The Tin Drum Harris T, Hannibal Rising Heidegger M,House of Being Ishiguro K, Remains of The Day Johnson S,Rasselas Kafka,Metamorphosis Kosinski J, The Painted Bird Lee H,To Kill a Mockingbird McBain Ed,Gutter and Grave Murakami H,Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Nabokov V, Lolita Meyer, S, Twilight Ortega,Dehumanization of Art Poe E A, Gordon Pym Prose F, Reading Like a Writer Rushdie S,Midnight Children Sabatini R, Scaramouche Spark M, Prime of Miss Brodie Stendhal, Red and Black Sterne L,Tristram Shandy Stevenson R, Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde Stoker B, Dracula Thackeray W,History of Pendennis Tolstoy L, Anna Karenina Trollope A, Autobiography Unamuno M, Tragic Sense of Life Voltaire, Candide Webb J, Fields of Fire Wharton E, The House of Mirth Woolf V, To The Lighhouse The secrets of 'no-doze' prose: Mary Duffy's Sentence Openers Image via Wikipedia Lindsey Vonn Back to main page

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